call_copse wrote:Tycoon is one thing I'd call Mr Trump. On the principal that if you have nothing good to say about someone say nothing, I'll refrain from mentioning other epitaphs suitable for deployment in this instance. He is certainly no advert for plutocracy.

I'm not sure if you are saying he is a worthy example of plutocracy because of its negative aspect (which I might assume as you are clearly of religious belief) or that he is all hunky dory. I'm going to confess that I would hold anyone who had any truck whatsoever with the birther movement (as he is reputed to) to be of the very meanest levels of intelligence.

Ian: I read your post. I suppose I am just a little dense. I think we are singing off the same page. I believe Trump to be a plutocrat and I do not hold plutocrats in high regard.

I hadn't heard the term "birther movement" until now and I Googled its meaning. To question President Obama's U. S. citizenship and his right to be President is absurd. His political stance is a matter of honest debate, but I will not debate it.

@PhilipThat's somewhat reassuring! I assure you I do not regard you as dense (though I might have remained silent if you revealed birther tendencies!)

Of course the President's political stance is up for honest and probing debate, probably not on this forum really, but the birther movement is simply wrong, and counter productive to your nation's well-being. I never quite understood whether Trump's involvement with such was simple but genuine wrong-headedness, or cynical manipulation. Either way you may have divined my thoughts about him by now

Birther. See "miscegenation" unfortunately. Probably the root of the problem, although in my area any form of liberalism is blasphemy. After all, don't liberals want to take away all our guns to leave us defenseless while they take over the country and impose a communist state? Just as the other side is sure that the "one per cent" do rule the country, monopolizing all the money and crushing the other ninety per cent under their feet. Waaay more heat than light.

I'm surprised that some of the Southern members had escaped hearing from or about the 'birthers' until this thread. I heard about them ad nauseum starting with the 2008 primaries. To curb some hysterical claims from that quarter I had to point out that John McCain was actually born outside the US proper -- in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father was stationed. That said, I certainly wouldn't consider it an impediment, and clearly the powers that be do not either, or he wouldn't be able to run. Some of these people told me with straight (albeit angry) faces that Hawaii is not part of the US.

There is something in the human wiring that loves a good conspiracy theory, perhaps partly because of the accuracy of Lord Acton's famous observation: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." It's easier to believe that an [evil] them is actively plotting against the [good] us than to accept that all people are complex, and sometimes bad things happen. And sometimes just not getting one's way in every single interaction is interpreted as a very bad thing indeed.

Religion AND politics! Slava has ye olde gatekeeping hands full. Changing gears, it's hard to believe there are those who may believe that Hawaii is not part of the U.S. Makes you wonder under what rock some people reside. Just saying.

Be who you are and say what you feel in your heart. Because those that matter, don't mind. And those that mind, don't matter.